


Dr Garrigan comes home

by mortianna



Category: The Last King of Scotland (2006)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Eventual Romance, F/M, Love, Plot, Terror, explicit sex scene at the end:-), happy end for Nicholas, james mcavoy movie, some smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-14
Updated: 2020-11-14
Packaged: 2021-03-10 04:40:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,022
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27558499
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mortianna/pseuds/mortianna
Summary: Nicholas Garrigan comes home a broken man after his adventure trip to Uganda. He meets someone from the past. More past than he knows of obviously. Real story in this, then the usual smut :-)
Relationships: Nicholas Garrigan/original female character
Kudos: 1





	Dr Garrigan comes home

She stood with his mother at the airport and felt rather –weird. Anxious. At the wrong place. She hardly knew Nicholas. Yes, their parents had been friends for ages and all that and yes, they had seen each other through school and later at University as Scotland was so small and rather secluded and yes they had their fair share of –stuff –done together their parents didn’t and wouldn’t ever know of, but she really didn’t know him at all. After that jump into the river he had fled the country without telling anybody about it and was gone. And now he was coming back from some state in Africa via the USA where they had done unspeakable things to him. In both countries. She felt uneasy. But her mother had told her, her old friend was afraid of going alone, she was no help with her MS and her husband - well, Dr Garrigan senior would never miss a day at work for something so trivial as his only son coming home after years of absence and possible harm done to him. Shealagh shook her head. She was such an idiot. Like always. She had done what was asked of her whereas Nicholas had run off, not caring what became of the one he’d left behind and now came back as the lost son and got all the –well, whatever that the stay at homers didn’t. And there was the small plane landing and she took the arm of the shivering woman and walked with her to the Arrivals gate. She saw him straight away. He couldn’t walk alone. He had a tan. His head moved as if he couldn’t move his eyes, looking completely lost and looking for a way out, an escape, like a fleeing animal.He was so thin, the clothes hang off him. His hair was rather long and fell into his face. When he now lifted his head, the hair fell back and she caught her breath –one yes was swollen so badly that it was completely covered, there were bruises and stitches in his face as if he had been badly beaten. Well, he never had been one to go out of the way of trouble but this here was not the Nicholas she had vaguely known. This was a beaten man, afraid of his own shadow, with eyes that had seen the darkness of the world and as if the owner had added to that darkness. She was not sure if she was more afraid for him or of him. But she wasn’t here for her sake. She held the arm of his mother who had begun to sob. “Stay strong, Mary”, she said, “he can’t have that here now”. She had no idea how to handle the both of them, the two people nearly carrying Nicholas were from the flight personnel. He seemed to be the only passenger, btw, wasn’t that strange? What was he, had he become? A spy? A terrorist? Yes, they had heard rumours and sometimes read in the papers that he was best buddies with that awful dictator in –well, somewhere in Africa. But that couldn’t be, now, could it? He was simply a doctor and hadn’t got anything to do with the atrocities only whispered about. The only thing that could have done him in was his sex drive, that had been quite –abnormally great and he had used it on every girl around in generous portions. And his vanity –he had prided himself he could have everything he wanted and not caring for the consequences for other people. She sighed. Yes, that could have landed other people in problems just like it had here. She was not the right person to greet him after all these years, she had known that, but she was here now and would have to make it through. She had survived worse things in her life. “He looks so –battered”, his mother said and she had to really grab her hard to not let her fall down. She couldn’t move into the direction of him and the two men –no they weren’t flight personnel, she saw it now, they had the ugly faces of secret service or some such persons in bad movies and now she felt really sick. And the more they came closer, the worse Nicholas looked.   
He seemed to be hardly able to stand, let alone walk. His –beautiful, she had to give him that –face looked so awful, his one eye-was the other still there at all? It was so swollen she couldn’t make out the actual eye. She held the now really sobbing mother and wished Dr Garrigan senior had for once seen his duty elsewhere than in work. Then they were in front of each other. Nicholas didn’t seem to recognize his own mother, far less her, he seemed to be drugged. “Couldn’t you get him a wheelchair? Why is he in such a state?” She worked as head nurse and she could talk like that to much taller guys but these didn’t wink. “We’re gonna see him again”, one of them said, “take care he’s in good shape then. He’ll need it. He’s lucky he made it out. And the yanks rather would have liked to keep him. He might need a doctor”. “Yes, might”, she said with all the sardonical irony she could muster, “thank God his father is one”. “And he, too”, his mother said. She was astounded she could speak even if it was nonsense. That Nicholas was in no position to look after himself, perhaps never would be –again –was all too clear to her. Somehow they made it to her car and thank God Nicholas wasn’t the tallest and totally slim. He fainted on the seat and she drove as fast and careful as she could, home, to his home, his parents’ home, the only thing he had said after: “Mother” and “Sinead” to her, to which she only nodded, no use to feel offended now and it confirmed only her doubts, was “ho hospital, please” and that had sounded so forlorn, so desperate, that she did what he wanted, even if she was very doubtful as to that being right.She brought him up to his room which still seemed to be the room of a late teen after the years and he seemed much older now. Wasn’t there even a grey streak in his hair? No that was only just the light. His mother wanted to open his clothes but he held her hands and said: “No. Don’t want you to...Sinead, can you? We were in medicine together, weren’t we?” “Yes”, she said, “even if that’s not my name, but yes”. “Sorry”, he said and some of the old charm was there on his battered face and in his voice, but gone again the next second. “I have –wounds –there. Can you look after them?” She nodded. Must be really bad then when the little egotist wanted to spare his mother. “Your father...”, she began. “No”, “he said, “perhaps later. Shealagh, was it?” “Right”, she said and that was the “go” for everything. “Mary, could you fetch some hot water and clean cloth or something?” She wanted her out of the room. It must be more than just bad if he didn’t even want his father to see it. And it was.She had seen victims of harassment, of accidents, but something like that –never. She had opened his shirt very carefully but his face contorted at her slightest touch. “What did they...?” she started to ask and then she saw it. Not yet. Didn’t believe her eyes. But there was a lot of material brought onto his chest and around his shoulders none to diligently and as if done in an awful hurry and it was all soaked in blood. “Holy shit”, she said, “I will need scissors for that and some kind of sedative”. “Yes”, he said and his head rolled back and his eyes closed. “And have a drink yourself before you see it. It looks really awful I guess”. Then he started sobbing like he could never stop again, even if that must hurt like hell in his chest and she couldn’t hold him and then there was Mary, eyes big in panic, and she sent her away again for scissors and something against the pain. And simply held his hand while he cried like a baby.  
He could stop though, when his mother returned. She sent her away again although she could have used her or anybody’s help for getting off these blood-crusted bandages. She would tear everything that might have healed in the meantime apart again, but that couldn’t be helped, he felt hot, his forehead hot –and such a large wound, she still hadn’t seen it but from the bandage, if infected –that would be it. She gave him something against the pain and was rather generous –thank God for living in a doctor’s household –and he seemed to be knocked out enough for her to start on the bandages. It was hard work and she had to concentrate on breathing and then, after long and arduous work she saw it –what on earth could leave wounds like these? Like from –she couldn’t even imagine –as if someone had put something like –hooks –into his chest and then –pulled him up by them? That was clearly impossible but that was the picture she got. The good thing was –the wounds didn’t stink and they hadn’t hurt any organ or he would be dead by now, but his heart beat and the wounds, hideous and hurting like hell as they must, weren’t deadly as such, only if ... well, whatever. Whoever had tended to them had done a really good job in all hurry, pumping him with all the antibiotics to be had and painkiller or he wouldn’t have made it. There was no need now to sow the wounds, they had already started to mend –the human flesh was so stubborn and Nicholas was still young even if he didn’t look it. Now that he was sleeping or whatever she could peruse his face without him catching her at it–and that wasn’t a question of making his head bigger than it was already but of protecting him –even if she would never have thought that she would ever be willing to protect Nicholas Garrigan. The wounds in his face, the swollen eye couldn’t come from fists alone, they –whoever they were –must have used knives. And guns. So why on earth hadn’t they shot him dead, why didn’t he have wounds from knives on his body, only those hideous things? Oh, she thought, and at last believed it, oh, they must have tortured him and that somehow hurt her more than she would have thought possible. So she cared for the wounds tenderly, cleaned them and put new bandages on. It was a bit awkward to do that alone and she had to get so close to him as she never wanted to, again, but he was ridiculously lightweight and so she could do it. She was sweating and panting afterwards and only then noticed that Nicholas’ dad was standing in the open door, had been standing there for how long she didn’t know, with tears in his eyes, and said: “Thank you. Tea, luv?” She shook her head absent-mindedly and watched Nicholas. “I should be going but he needs to be watched. I don’t know, perhaps I gave him too much of that pain killer”. “I will do it”, promised Dr Garrigan. She couldn’t help feeling a bit –annoyed. He was a great doctor, everybody knew that, but not a gifted caretaker. And Nicholas didn’t even want him, no, hadn’t been sure, if he wanted to have him around, see him like that. But the wounds were bound now and what the hell, since when did she care about what Nicholas Garrigan wanted? How much had he cared about what she wanted?Nada, rien, not at all.“I’ll be back”, she said, nonetheless, and only noticed when she got up that she felt quite dizzy –well she hadn’t eaten for some time now and that had really been a gruelling experience. “Go downstairs to have some tea, luv”, the old doctor said, “I’ll call your mother and the hospital. It’ll be alright”. “Okay”, she said and rather felt her duties fall off of her. It felt rather great. Sometimes it was just so good to live in this small town where everybody was so close. She worked for her boss, here or at the hospital, and as Dr Garrigan was her boss, he could do this. So she had tea with Mary and ate more than she could remember having eaten in a long time, she usually had not time nor money for high tea and this rather formal and ancient ritual soothed her nerves even if she could imagine all too well how young, younger Nicholas might have felt –like an animal in a cage of well-meaning walls. He had had to break out and now –look at him.“He’ll recover and live, he will, won’t he?”, Mary asked after a really long time without saying anything. She thought that over. No, no use to glaze it. Mary was a doctor’s wife after all. “He’ll survive, yes, I’m quite sure of that. But recover –I don’t know what happened to him and if he can make it out of that dark place ever. Or alone”. Mary looked at her with her blue eyes that were so unlike those of her son’s but had some steel beneath, too. “We’ll do everything for him as we always did. He will make it. He can do that. He’s a Garrigan and a doctor”. Shealagh stifled a sigh. She knew what that meant. No shrink cause people might talk.  
So that was that then. You could go away from this place, home, come back bruised and battered, nearly dead, but your family would still keep up appearances at all costs, as if you had done something wrong. She could do nothing against it, was part of the system, too.So she fellinto a routine to serve Nicholas, no, serve his parents, his father, her mother and came every day, after work, to do some more work on that man she had tried to forget for years. His body seemed to heal quite well, yes, he was young, that was good, and with the medical knowledge of his father who hovered in the background and told her what to do when she was unsure, the wounds healed and even the eye opened again. But it took time. And the soul –he didn’t talk, didn’t talk at all about what had happened, the Nicholas she had known had prided himself of talking about everything, to know everything and liked to manipulate people. He had been charming and intelligent and had used that to his advantage, now that person was gone and there was only an empty –shell.She thought it was such a waste –caring for the body, keeping it alive, bringing it to live again and letting the soul rot in the dark recesses of wherever it dwelt.She tried to talk to Dr Garrigan, his wife, her mother but everyone said: “He’ll be fine. He only needs rest. Best not talk about these ugly things”. So she just came, dutifully, every day, changed the bandages, looked after the wounds and sat there, looking at his face that slightly, very slowly got better. Most of the time he was asleep or pretended to be. There was no thank you or anything, well, might just be, not everything of good old Nicholas was dead. She didn’t think much about her task, about him when she was not there, she had a life of her own, this was just something she did, just like she would have watered the flowers of a friend or bought groceries for an old neighbor. And then some day, after four weeks of tending to this still spoilt brat he opened both of his irritating blue eyes –the one that had been so badly hurt she had thought at first he’d lose it, too –while she dressed the wounds which had become very much better, looked at her and said: “And what have you been doing all the time?”She nearly lost it. “You’re asking me this after four years of frolicking around in the world and four weeks of ignoring me here?”, she asked and it was not really a question. He made a strangled noise that perhaps should have been a laugh. The old Nicholas had had a quick and dirty laugh he could kill with. Or be killed for.   
There were only the lights from outside ant that was not much. She searched her way through the overstuffed room to the couch and found him, his eyes staring at her. “Soup?”, she asked and knelt down close to the sofa. A faint smile, the ghost of a smile. “Like you mother used to make it?” “Yes”. He sat up on the couch just a bit, she held the plate and he took the spoon and she remembered –in a shock –yes, she had completely forgotten that when they were young, really young, children, their parents used to live one door to another and had parties together and Nicholas and she had been together in the other flat for the time, left to their own devices, with the not so beautiful from the party and had had their own parties. She shook her head –how could she have forgotten all that –they had built their tents, their flying carpets, they had travelled around the world and fought fights, lived adventurous lives and promised each other never to become like their parents, ever stuck in this tiny life in this tiny place. How could she have forgotten all that and being angry at him for having forgotten he had screwed her in a drunken night at the river? It had only been such a tiny part of their past together. Her hand shook. He laid his hand over hers immediately, put the spoon into the plate and put it to the ground. “Enough, thank you. And thank you for saving me today and for everything you did since I’m back. I appreciate it really, it’s just that...” And now he began to shiver and she reached out for him to hold him like when he had cut himself deeply in their childhood and broken something (and he had always broken something) and it was all too natural that they both lay down on the floor, between the couch and the table, and she just held him while he shook again like he had done on the playground earlier and after the shivering, the shaking and the fighting arms and legs had subsided, the tears came and when those had dried, too, he told her. What he had done. Survived, barely. While others had not. Which was his fault. How those people haunted him. How he wished he had been a better person, not so self-centered, self-righteous, so into himself and seeing everything as a means to inflate his ego and have fun.She felt his agony and was shocked. And then again, in a way –not. She had known it must be something really big and awful for him to be changed like that. “And I can’t like –ever again, and that haunts me too. And am so sorry for that night, I mean, I don’t even remember it, and at least, after all the time we had been apart, I would have liked it to be something special”. “It was for me”, she said, very lowly and against her will really. “Even if...” “If?”, he asked. She shrugged and laughed a bit. “Well, you were really drunk, I was, too, and I think it didn’t last more than five minutes. Nothing much really. Never quite understood how I could get pregnant from so little. I mean, yes, I know, that’s possible, but...” “I’m so sorry”, he said again and his eyes, so close now, bore into hers. “We were so close as children and then we lost it. Why? I could never have done that to you if I hadn’t... But I was. That’s not an excuse. I know. But I mean, I would have wanted it to be the beginning of something. But I had to get away from here, out of it. Or so I thought”. “Oh, I wanted that, too”, she said, “I had a job already in Canada. But then...” “Yes, but then...”, Nicholas said under his breath and for a moment she was afraid she had tossed him into the abyss of self-hate even further. She laid her fingertips onto his mouth and noticed with a jolt that his lips still felt like she didn’t remember she remembered that good –full, soft, plush, completely irresistible. If she had berated herself for having fallen for him that night, not pushed him away as sh should have done, here was the answer.  
He was simply irresistible and in this broken state even worse. Through the crack the light shone in. Or out? She let her fingertips caress his lips. “It was just as good. Shortly after, my mother fell ill and could be here for her. And she could be here for little James and me. It all worked out in the end”. “In the end”, he said slowly and his one hand moved at the back of her neck, very lightly, but every nerve there reacted to that as if it had been waiting for years for that touch. As they possibly had with her head ignoring that or making fun of it. “Is this –the end?”, he asked, looking into her eyes mesmerizingly, “can’t there be something like a future?” His fingers stroking her neck under her hairline, he eyes, she could see everything in them. But she didn’t trust him or her feelings yet, both had lead her –here. “I don’t know”, she murmured, her head having fallen down on his, her forehead to his, her fingers still stroking his lips, “didn’t you want to die?”He laughed lowly and that went right through her body. “I guess I’m just too egotistical for that. I just wan the voices to stop, the pictures, Kay, the baby, her sons, the minister... I don’t know if I ever ... but ... I’m sorry”.They both had slid down even more onto the ground just as if their bodies moved together like they had when they were children and pretended they were on a raft on rapids. Only their heads were resting against the couch, their bodies were lying under the table on the carpet.“I’m sorry, too”, she said and her other hand stroked his neck now and the feelings that brought up let her close her eyes, but she opened them again, she wanted to see him. “I was son angry at you because I had to stay here, while you could go your own way, never looking back, leaving me here... And yes, I thought you didn’t remember but ... you should have, you should”. She cried now and he just kept stroking her neck, his forehead at hers, so it was as if he was taking his part of the feeling. “And I couldn’t be angry at little James. So I was at you. But it was only just –it was my fault. I shouldn’t have –but I wanted you so much ... I didn’t want to be part of your circus, so I went my own ways, but that night ... I wanted that. And it was really bad”, she said with a laugh. He smiled a bit and said: “That’s what it was. I thought you –were not interested. That that between you and me was only childhood stuff. Because there was nobody else. I never ... And I’m sorry it wasn’t good. I can imagine. And I thought I could never again, not after Kay, but if you want to try ... I ... am up to it, I think?!?”She smiled and took away her fingers from hi slips. She had never believed that. Well, not completely. He was much too young and full of life for that. He did grieve, felt ashamed and fell into depression now and then, but his body was so vibrant, so made for love, it was simply not possible for him to punish himself his whole life. She touched his lips with hers and it seemed as if her lips had been waiting for that her whole life, too. “Here and now?”, she asked, into his mouth, while his lips answered hers instantly and his arms enfolded her in an embrace and his body was on hers and pressed her to the ground and there she had her answer, yes, he was up to it, here and now, and part of her brain was against that totally, but another part felt it was quite okay and alright really, in the parents’ livingroom, it was only just a continuation of them being together from old times.   
But she nevertheless stopped his all too eager body, although it had already persuaded hers to give in, go for it already, with her hands against his upper arms which felt wonderful under her touch and said: “Slowly slowly. You owe me a real experience, you know. No need to hurry through this as if we might get caught”. Which made them laugh of course, because that was exactly it, even if her, their son was a good sleeper and her mother never came downstairs on her own in the night, but still ... and now they kissed much more slowly, but deeper, she could feel he was holding himself back, not to be too pushy, to let her take the lead and show him how far, how fast to go and she felt that, yes, it went deeper, in him too, through this, not like a sprint to get to his goal and run through the line as fast as possible, be the first one in the water and fuck the rest, but as if they were together in this, deeply, and they ran as if this was a 5000 metres race, not a sprint of 50. At first they only kissed, deeply, exploring each other for the first time intimately which it was because the last time there had been no exploring, more –exploiting and devouring, then their hands started stroking each other on their own accord, and yes, their bodies wanted to come together , both of them, and she sighed and he groaned and suddenly it felt urgent, so urgent, and she thought, fleetingly, while he pulled off his Tee and she held her breath, seeing the wounds with only just some tiny plaster now, that the healing capacity of the human body never ceased to amaze her, and he swallowed while she looked at him and pulled him close, kissing his whole face, his neck, his chest, while he cried a little and then touched her under her blouse and she hissed and he went slowly, so slowly, she could hardly stand it, and pushed his hands away and pulled the thing off and they were naked skin on naked skin and both groaned and touched each other feverishly and soon her hands were at his belt, fumbling, and he gave a funny and not funny at all little laugh and when she had opened his trousers and groaned and made him groan as she held him in her hand now, his eyes closed and flew open again and he asked under his breath, raw and deep was his voice, so deep: “May I”?, his hands under her skirt, at her panty, and she nodded, breathless, yes, oh yes, get on with it, and he did and she threw her body against his and they both groaned as their bodies found each other, into each other without any further help, and he held her head in both his arms, enfolding her, embracing her, while he started moving into her and out again, slowly, so very slowly, biting his lips with the concentration of it and she smiled under his lips and when she felt, yes, really felt, there was now no going back for her or not coming to the finish line, she whispered hoarsely: “Come luv, let go”. And he did and now got real fast and thrust deeply still holding her close so close and she could feel everything, their whole inner beings from the past, the now and perhaps even the future combined as they both finished –together. And fell together even more deeply onto the floor, their flying carpet, even if that wasn’t physically possible, and lay there talking and caressing each other until the next morning, when they had to part because of her duties, and lucky she was that they were both dressed again, drinking the first tea of the day in the kitchen, still talking about this and that, when her, their son came running and clinging to his mother,asked again who the man was, and she said, beaming: “An old friend. And a new one”. And Nicholas nodded. There would be times when they would tell him more but not just now. She looked at both her boys, looking so alike and felt happy, so happy she wouldn’t have believed possible. But it was. Even for her. And for him. She was sure of that.He could feel –feel much deeper because he was hurt so badly. And perhaps sometime in the future, they would leave this small town and go into the world. As a family. But that was in the future. And that here was the now. She smiled and he smiled at her and everything was alright really. the end?

**Author's Note:**

> Quite happy with this one as a story I have to say. Wasnt sure where this was going from the beginning, but then it just flowed. Yes, he was an arsehole, but being an arsehole normally isnt punished like that. If you like, leave a little dog. Highly appreciated:-)


End file.
